Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,
And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether
They kept the world's birth-day and brighten'd to-

gether!

For I lov'd them in terror, and constantly dreaded

That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded,

The face I might dote on, should live out the lease
Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease:

And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream
To another each horrid and drank of the stream

Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd

Swift poison, and never should breathe from the

draught,

Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up

When he pledg'd her, and Fate clos'd his eyes in the

cup.

And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear
That the branch would start back and scream out in

my ear;

For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk

An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk;

But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore,
And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core;
And once
only once- for the love of its blush,
I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush
On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright,
While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the
sight;

And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note,

That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat,
As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand
Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd!

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree,

Oh! for innocent death, — and to suddenly win it,

I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it;
I plung'd in its waters, but ere I could sink,
Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink;
I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height,
But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight;
I ran at my fears they were fears and no more,

For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar,

But moan'd,

all their brutaliz'd flesh could not smother

The horrible truth, - we were kin to each other!

They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief, All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: The leopard was there, - baby-mild in its feature ; And the tiger, black barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore ; And the laughing hyena - but laughing no more; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine; And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, How thoughtful in sadness! but this is no season To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad

To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when

I came,

That hung down their heads with a human-like shame; The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear

Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair;

And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust, Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust; While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot, As I brought them the image of what they were not.

Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking Through vile brutal organs-low tremulous croaking; Cries swallow'd abruptly - deep animal tones

Attun'd to strange passion, and full-utter'd groans;
All shuddering weaker, till hush'd in a pause

Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yearning jaws;
And I guess'd that those horrors were meant to tell o'er
The tale of their woes; but the silence told more
That writhed on their tongues; and I knelt on the sod,
And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring God,
For the sad congregation of supplicants there,
That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer;
And I ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep,

That I wept for my heart-ease, but they could not

weep,

And gazed with red eye-balls, all wistfully dry,

At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye.

Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress,
I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress,
Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm,
And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm
Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate
From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate;
So they passively bow'd — save the serpent, that leapt
To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept

In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd
My lips in rash love, then drew backward, and glister'd
Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright,
Dropt down, and swift started away from my sight!

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet, And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet: But I fled though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled

With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had

mangled,